NickFaulks wrote:I If you were to establish a separate rating list for 2-4 hour games, I don't think people would be interested in it. Speaking as a player myself, I wouldn't.

So it's a four way or possibly five way choice

(1) ignore the problem
(2) set up a new rating system for games between 2 and 4 and a bit hours of elapsed time
(3) include games in rapidplay rating
(4) include games in standard rating
(5) adopt (2) or (3) but remove nominally 4 hour games from the elite rating list that is used for titles and Norms.

The logic of FIDE reducing the rating floor to 1000 was to have a universal system. If you want that then you should be including all serious games played by players over 1000 and if a large part of these players are playing 3 hour games then they should be included in the rating system. The issue of titles can be dealt with (if necessary) by maintaining or toughening up the requirements for tournaments in which you could earn title norms.

Whether the ordinary chess player would be prepared to pay FIDE to give him a proper international rating for playing in an evening league is another matter, of course

David Shepherd wrote:One solution would be to grade the games and include them in either the standard or rapid list but with a low k factor.

Sorry, that idea has been around for years and would be a definitive FIDE "compromise", but in reality it's just a cop-out. There has to be a decision about which games are fit for the main rating list and which are not.

In my opinion, the principle should be:
(1) Any game played to the standardplay Laws should be eligible for standardplay rating.
(2) Any game played to the rapidplay Laws should be eligible for rapidplay rating.
(3) Any game played to the blitz Laws should be eligible for blitz rating.

I don't much care about where the demarcation lies. I think I read on the SCCU website that the ECF used to have a window of 25 minutes each to 1 hour 15 minutes each to be rapidplay graded. So Game/90 isn't that much of a stretch from what England did in the past. I wouldn't be unhappy with 10 and 90 as the cutoffs.

The discussion on norms is entirely separate. If you want to allow tournaments with 2 games per day, then you need to permit 4-hour sessions. If you don't, then maybe put the minimum at a 5-hour session. You could perhaps have a regulation that one of the norms in a title application needs to be at a minimum of a 5-hour session time limit, which without looking it up, wouldn't cause a problem with the events awarding direct titles. In my opinion, the current title regulations are fine as they are.

A genuinely radical idea about ratings: Why not have one rating list only, with k as a function of the time limit? In snooker, the world rankings happily have best of 7 matches in the same system as best of 35 matches. They're just weighted differently (using prize money) so the best of 7s don't count as much as the best of 35s. Then it doesn't matter where you draw the lines between game types for rating purposes.

Alex Holowczak wrote: So Game/90 isn't that much of a stretch from what England did in the past. I wouldn't be unhappy with 10 and 90 as the cutoffs.

The minimum standard for standard play grading used to be 30 moves in 60 minutes plus 15 minutes extra. Or G/75 as an alternative. For that matter 30 moves in 75 minutes followed by adjudication was accepted. Bringing the cutoff point for rapid rating in line with FIDE at one hour was an ECF decision of around ten years ago.

Removing G/90 from standard play grading is a very long step as far as ECF domestic grading is concerned.

What FIDE does is academic as unless FIDE also intend to water down arbiter requirements and the ECF winds back membership requirements, I don't see any evening league agreeing to have games FIDE rated.

Roger de Coverly wrote:
What FIDE does is academic as unless FIDE also intend to water down arbiter requirements

I realise that you have discovered a trove of FIDE regulations that are hidden from the rest of us, including those whose job is to apply them. It would be an enormous service if you could tell us where to find them.

NickFaulks wrote:
I realise that you have discovered a trove of FIDE regulations that are hidden from the rest of us,

Presence of at least a National Arbiter as a condition of games being rated. Requirement that all non-local nationals have a FIN before games can be rated. These are requirements introduced in quite recent memory. Players are required not to have switched off phones on their person.

I agree that the "presence" is a moveable feast with various people seemingly at odds as to whether said arbiter needs to be present in person.

The Chief Arbiter of a FIDE registered tournament has to provide the tournament report (TRF file) within 7 days after the end of the tournament to the Rating Officer of the federation where the tournament took place.

I understand from this, that unless there's a Chief Arbiter, the tournament cannot be rated.

and in 0.3

All arbiters of a FIDE rated tournament shall be licensed otherwise the tournament shall not be rated.

[/quote]

Are you contesting the interpretation of taking these two together that it's a condition of FIDE rating that an arbiter has to be appointed and be at least a National Arbiter?

Last edited by Roger de Coverly on Tue Mar 22, 2016 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.